I think there are times when it would be nice if homeschooled children could keep in touch via the internet... especially for children that must be homeschooled due to health reasons. They often don't have a lot of interaction with other children because of health issues, compared to the child homeschooled for religious or other reasons.

Some children having gone through environmental exposures are unable to attend a public school environment (if they and the parents wanted that ) due to the frequency of mold in schools or their use of chemicals and the child's inability to tolerate such.

You'd be AMAZED how much illness and learning disabilities is happening that can be contributed to the indoor enivronment - whether it be home or school. If only more people understood the impact of health from indoor environmental exposures ranging from mold to everyday cleaning chemicals to the use of pesticides in schools.....

Back to the point... it would be nice if there were chat forums, heavily moderated, where children could keep in touch. Separate forums specifically for those learning in particular ways, or having particular disabilities or health conditions might be nice. Just some thoughts...

Dust mites also produce one of the most powerful allergens known to man, so living in an environment with a lot of dust can cause asthma or asthma-like symptoms. I'd think that was a more important problem than mold or pesticides.

To your comment:
"Dust mites also produce one of the most powerful allergens known to man, so living in an environment with a lot of dust can cause asthma or asthma-like symptoms. I'd think that was a more important problem than mold or pesticides."

The sad truth is that most people DO think exactly like you think. People are very uneducated about the items in their indoor environment, whether home, school or workplace and how it can affect their health. People seem to be better educated on outdoor environmental issues such as chemicals emitted from factories, pollutants from power plants, etc. but have little understanding of the same within their indoor spaces.

While dust mites are an important problem to be taken seriously and can cause asthma, not only can mold and pesticides cause asthma, but can also affect every other organ system and can cause cancer. Maybe you aren't familiar with the devastation hidden mold-infestation (or visible for that matter) in one's home or school can have on multiple occupants. My family and many across the county, as well as many in public schools are aware.

While those news stories you see on TV about mold making entire families ill might seem unbelievable, they are very real. I've lived it personally and the severity of our hidden problem nearly killed our son at age 4 before we learned what was making us all horribly ill. I thank God every day for those news stories because it's part of what helped us save our son. Not only are the nation's schools full of mold and not being taken seriously as the true health hazard it is, they also frequently use neurotoxic pesticides too. Those pesticides cause asthma, but also brain damage, learning disorders and beyond. That's why I feel these are important concerns.

My entire family was unfortunate enough to go through chemical poisoning too in a rented home due to improperly used chemicals by someone other than us - that nearly killed 3 of us . Therefore, we've been forced to learn about the safety of indoor environments, the use of less-toxic alternatives, etc. I try not to look at our experiences totally as bad experiences because I firmly believe everything happens for a reason. We realize that we have the opportunity to educate others so they don't have to face the nightmares we have.

Neither of our situations likely could have been prevented because one was hidden and the other unexpected at the hands of someone else, but if we had been educated more on the health effects of molds or chemicals, it might have been different. I can only imagine what is ahead for the people having gone through the hurricanes and going back to mold-damaged homes.

I could share a lot more, but I fear this may not be the correct forum - unless there are others that are interested and it is okay to share further information about environmental health issues.

Thanks for considering a board and/or chat just for homeschooled kids. Particularly, I thought some sort of moderated real-time type chats would be nice for children of all ages (old enough to type a bit of course) because it's a different feel then e-mails or such. They can correspond similar as if talking by phone. However, even just a board dedicated to kids would be nice too. I suspect many may spend so much time with studies they may not have much time to participate frequently, but it might be a nice outlet for them once in a while. I apologize for the length of the post.

I'm still willing to bet that dust is a more widespread health hazard than mold, but I guess debating the topic is pointless because I'm not a researcher and don't have statistics handy Feel free to go ahead and supply more environmental info if you want._________________Homeschool Articles - Events - Support Groups